Five-Year Mission

Many times throughout the two decades following college graduation, I would scribble ideas for a scene, or chapter, only to dismissively shove them in a drawer and forget about them. Although I had written a handful of halfway decent short stories in high school and at college, a novel was always the brass ring I hoped to grasp, but never could seem to achieve.

In 2010, I decided it was time to fulfill my lifelong dream of writing a book. It didn't really matter what kind of book, or if it ended up being a good book. Outlining, writing, rewriting, editing and formatting a book -- even a short one -- is no easy task. The challenge for someone like me with self-diagnosed ADD and crippling authorial insecurity was getting from the start of chapter one to the words "The End" without losing the thread of the story. The result, a murder mystery titled Damage, was just that: poorly constructed with a minimum of characters and no sense of urgency imparted, yet a fairly intact and coherent plot. My apologies to anyone kind enough to have read it for me, because they certainly weren't reading it for themselves. The only good thing to come from Damage was I proved to myself I could, in fact, write a novel-length story.

Halfway through the process, while mustering the courage to tackle rewriting the clunky first draft of Damage, I took a break from it and wrote several chapters of a fun story for my children. Then the urge to return to Damage struck and I abandoned those chapters. Some two years later, I came across them and determined they weren't half bad, so I redrafted them and created the first book in The Psi Squad series titled, quite unimaginatively, The Psi Squad: Book One. The book came quickly and was tremendously enjoyable to write. The characters spoke to me in ways none of the characters in Damage had managed to, and because I had already proven to myself I could write a 60,000-word novel, I didn't feel pressured to prove it again. The Psi Squad: Book One is only about 18,000 words long, if that, meaning it ended up being exactly the length it needed to be. The self-published book hit Amazon's virtual bookshelves in 2013.

The following year saw the release of The Psi Squad and the Atherton Ghost which was equally as fun to write and slightly longer at 27,000 words. Its story continued where the first book left off and fleshed out the world just enough for my liking. Intentionally short chapters, each moving the story along by inches and providing a little character development along the way, served as perfectly spaced stepping stones to keep me from veering off course. 

Neither of The Psi Squad books have made any waves in the literary world. That's fine by me. Would I like to get rich off my writing and retire to a private island where I could write all day? Of course, but writing is just my hobby and the joy of hobbies is supposed to come from the doing, not some external reward. Besides, middle grade fiction is a tough market. I'd stand a better chance at commercial success writing an un-illustrated 400-year history of gout. After that second Psi Squad book was finished, I felt it was time to try writing something other than fiction for children. I quickly fell back into my habit of scribbling and discarding bits and pieces without any clear purpose. Before long, I decided to give The Psi Squad another try and quickly completed a first draft of a third book. Then something terrible happened -- I convinced myself it was awful.

The first Psi Squad had minimal ghost story and was mostly about introducing the three main characters. The second Psi Squad had a better balance between ghost story and character development, even managing to introduce a fourth main character. With the third book, it felt I had taken a step backward and provided a story based more on the dynamics of the four primary characters than on the ghost story. As a result, that first draft sat on my Mac as, you guessed it, I scribbled and discarded scenes and chapters for stories that would never see the light of day.

Late last year, while browsing Amazon's website, I decided to take a peek at my books. Among the various details displayed for each one is the release date. I was shocked to realize it had been four years since the release of The Psi Squad and the Atherton Ghost. This is a series for which I planned to write nine books and there I was with only two published books to show for it and a disappointing first draft of a third languishing. To drive the delay home even more, someone named Tania left a review on Goodreads for the second book that simply stated: "This book was just as entertaining as the first one. Loved the characters and the story. Such a pity that the third is not out yet."

The very next day, during my lunch break, I pulled up that draft and started reading it front to back without stopping to make notes or edit. I wanted to see if it really was as awful as I recalled. It wasn't. As with any first draft, there were a few errors here and there, a few spots that went on too long, others that needed to go on a bit longer, but on the whole there were no major issues. During breaks in a busy schedule -- Hurricanes Florence and Michael didn't help matters -- a redrafted third book emerged and by January was ready.

So, five years following the publication of the second book in the series, The Psi Squad and the Unhappy Valentine finally is available on Amazon in ebook format (the paperback option is coming soon). At 33,000 words it is the longest of the books and, in my humble and unbiased opinion, offers a simple yet effective ghost story, some excellent character development, and several important setups for the next few books in the series. More importantly, work has already begun on the fourth book. While I won't promise a quick turn around, I can promise it won't take five years.

© 2019 Mark Feggeler

Avoiding the Inner Voice

There's this guy I knew way back when. Let's call him Jack Weinstein, which is appropriate since that's his name.

Jack was a year behind me at college and lived for a year in the dorm room next to mine. We were friendly, but not what I would call friends. As with other people with whom I was friendly-but-not-friends, Facebook has allowed us to reconnect in the virtual world for occasional glimpses into each other's lives. In the years since Plattsburgh, while I moved from journalism to public relations to sales, Jack became a philosopher. Seriously. He's a bona fide, published philosophy professor who writes a blog and hosts a public radio show called "Why?" once a month.

Just the other day, Jack dispatched through his philosophy-themed PQED blog a post that struck a chord in me. It was as though someone with a greater vocabulary, keener insights, more rapidly firing synapses, and a brain far less clouded by books like "Who Moved My Cheese?" decided to write an essay expressing my thoughts about the creative process and the inner voice that all too frequently seeks to crush creativity. It's easy to dismiss the inner voice that nags at you with unfounded fears and then berates you for having believed and acted on those fears. It's much more difficult to dismiss, however, when someone other than yourself drags that inner voice into the harsh light of day to lay bare just how insidiously harmful it can be.

Eight years ago, I realized two decades had passed since graduating from SUNY Plattsburgh and I had yet to fulfill my dream of writing a novel. Had I, or had I not, majored in writing? The only thing stopping me was fear of failure. To warm up to the daunting task, I started this blog. I figured if I couldn't write short essays about movies, parenting, candy, or clogged toilets then perhaps the novel was just a pipe dream. Fortunately, clogged toilets are great blog fodder. Is Ramblings of a Very Pale Man a great American work of living art? No. Did the novel I eventually get around to writing win a Pulitzer? Not by any stretch of the imagination. I never expected art, prizes, accolades or monetary windfalls. All I wanted was to find out if I was capable of accomplishing the task. The experience was so pleasurable that I wrote two more short books, introductory episodes in a series aimed at middle schoolers. Then, just as I finished drafting the third entry in the middle school series, something quite unexpected happened.

I lost faith.

When you lose faith in yourself, it's easy to blame other things for your lack of productivity. Busy work schedules, family responsibilities, the nasty political climate in the country -- anything becomes an easy scapegoat to avoid admitting the real problem lies within. After six years of writing blog posts and books for fun, it suddenly became a chore. And why? After the first year, people stopped buying my books on Amazon. The blog's tracking of visitors had plateaued. There were the occasional digs, as well, by dismissive people. No one other than me seemed interested in my writing. Perhaps all those people who weren't me were right to be disinterested. Who was I to judge my writings worth reading?

[NOTE: My Lovely Wife informed me, upon reading this post, that she misses my blog and that I am, and I quote, "a doodyhead." She would be correct.]

During the past two years, and despite having completed a first draft of that third book, I fell back into the tried and true, unfocused, fruitless endeavors of a nay-sayer. I started writing and outlining at least four different books without conviction or success, considered trying my hand at a screenplay, and entertained other lofty dreams when, in reality, what I wanted to do was write more silly blog posts and finish the middle school series. But, because no one cared about them, they weren't fun anymore. They were unrewarding, or so I thought until a few weeks ago.

Frustrated at my inability to move any project beyond a few chapters, I opened that third book in the middle school series and started reading. It didn't suck. It wasn't perfect. It needed some nips here and tucks there, but it didn't suck. Before I knew it, I found myself in full rewrite mode and enjoying it. How could I have forgotten how much fun creativity can be? That inner voice lied to me and I was stupid enough to believe it. It told me my writing didn't matter because it wasn't worth anything to anyone else when all it really needs to be is valuable to me.

When Jack's blog post about creativity titled "Maybe Your Work Isn't Lame After All" appeared in my Facebook feed, it was a perfectly timed validation of what I was already coming to understand. While his post presents a longer list of ways to assess the value of one's own work than I needed, since all I need is my own personal satisfaction as a contented hobbyist, the basic message was clear -- don't let self-doubt crush your creativity. That's what relatives are for.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a book to edit and a blog post about deadly apple slicers to write.


2018 Mark Feggeler

Two Books and a Blog

It's amazing what can be accomplished when you apply small bits of time and attention over a span of years.

In January 2010, when I decided to start writing this silly blog, I hadn't written a thing in more than 15 years. And blogging? I'd heard about the practice, but didn't have the first clue how to make it happen and whether or not I could dredge up enough posts to last a month.

I felt the same way in May 2010 when I began writing my first book. Figuring out how to structure the novel, how to manage the small amount of spare time available to yield the greatest results, and how to maintain enough interest in the project when, at best, I could produce only a handful of pages each week, were daunting tasks. Had I known from the start it would take close to three years to move the project from first draft to finished product, I might never have attempted it.

Yes, the blog has suffered in quantity and quality due to time spent writing the books, but it's free, so you're getting what you paid for. That said, the books also have had to wait on the blog from time to time. The fact is I can't write when I'm supposed to be working, and I won't give up the fun of family and friends just to hunker in the solitude of my basement to write, so time really is limited.

Covers for my first
two books.

Yet here I am starting off 2013 with an almost-finished novel-length murder mystery, an almost-finished novella-length children's paranormal fantasy, and three solid years of blogging under my belt. If all goes well, both books should be available for purchase as ebooks within the next 60 days, which will be a big relief. I have discovered the only thing more annoying than not being able to write when you want to is having to wait on edits and feedback when, in your own mind, the book is finished. But all it takes is one person to point out several typos and examples of unintentionally poor grammar to make you realize you can not serve as the sole editor of one of your own books.

As hobbies go, writing is a rewarding experience I recommend to anyone considering giving it a try. The biggest obstacle to overcome is the fear of sharing what you've written. Once you move beyond that, the rest is easy.

© 2012 Mark Feggeler

How Not To Write a Book

So, there's this book I've been writing over the course of the past two years. I wouldn't call it the Great American novel. More like the moderately decent Southeastern regional dime novel. I've wanted to write a book for the better part of my adult life, but I kept convincing myself such an unwieldy task was beyond my capabilities, like it was brain surgery.

One of the three things that challenged that outlook was this blog. After all, if I could find time to tap out these silly little posts, I certainly could find time to write a page or two here and there. The second thing was when I viewed the task as a puzzle. Ever since I was a kid I've enjoyed working on those large interlocking puzzles. Piecing together a novel shouldn't be all that different. Each page is just another piece that drops in to help create a larger picture. The third and final shift in my thinking on the matter came when I learned about online self-publishing. I had no more excuses. It was time to write a book.

It's a murder mystery of sorts, with characters shaped from bits of people I've known or heard of during my life. No one character is modeled directly after any one real person. [This is where I should write some cleverly structured sentence to use fancy words like "melange" and "gallimaufry," but I don't feel up to the mental challenge at the moment.] Suffice to say to those of you who know me, if you read the book and think a character is based entirely on you, you're wrong.

Some of the settings might seem familiar. For instance, the main character is a newspaper reporter. The office in which he works is very similar in layout to the one in which I worked many years ago. My coworkers from those days should have no trouble envisioning it if they read the book. Believe it or not, I worried about this for quite some time. Why was I doing it? Nostalgia? Laziness? Was I subconsciously trying to make a point about my first post-college job? No. As it turns out -- and this was a revelation -- I did it because I wanted to. Creating an environment similar to the one in which I worked back then, with its back-to-back cubicles and limited privacy, worked well for the kind of book I was trying to write. End of story.

In fact, much of the writing of the first draft involved time wasted worrying about what people might or might not recognize from real life, as though it were my authorly responsibility to utilize nothing from the real world and completely fabricate every aspect of the fictional environment. Looking back from where I am now, I'm amazed I didn't require some sort of anti-anxiety medication when writing the first draft.

I certainly needed it when I began work on the second draft. It was painfully clear upon reading what I had written I had no idea what I was doing in the first five-to-ten chapters. Utter crap. All of it. I made several half-hearted attempts to salvage it, but it was futile. After a couple months of delays, the rewrite began in earnest as just that, a complete rewrite. Every word, sentence, paragraph, page and chapter would need to be rewritten from scratch. Eventually, I thought, the quality of the material would level off and I could begin lifting large chunks and dropping them in. Not so. I'm almost exactly two-thirds of the way through the rewrite and have finally come to terms with the realization that not a single bit of the original warrants "ctrl-c/ctrl-v" inclusion in the second draft.

With every stage of the book, my initial assumptions about the process and schedule have been wrong. For instance, I thought:

1. I could start off writing the scenes that seemed most clear in my mind, then come back later to string them together with connective scenes. Wrong.
2. I didn't need an outline to keep the story clear in my head. Very wrong.
3. Once I outlined the story, the structure wouldn't change. Even wronger.
4. It would take 12 months to complete the first draft. Fairly wrong.
5. It would take 3-4 months to complete the second draft. Unbelievably wrong.

When you take into consideration the number of books and articles I've read over the years on how to go about writing a book -- and given the fact my college major was Writing -- it truly is astounding how thick-headed I've been from the onset of this adventure and through every twist and turn along the way. But you know what? I wouldn't want it any other way. You can learn a lot from books and teachers, journals and professors, but the best way to truly understand anything is to jump in with both feet and figure it out for yourself.

Unless you plan to be a brain surgeon. You might want to stay in school for that one.



© 2012 Mark Feggeler

Goal: Accomplished

So, there's this book I've wanted to write.

For some reason, I've always thought of myself as a writer, even as far back as elementary school. The projects that peaked my interest were those that required creativity and imagination, particularly when writing was involved. But when you're pathologically insecure, as I believe I was during my childhood, it's near to impossible to believe in seemingly unachievable dreams. Still, I scribbled away in the quiet of my room and hid my writings away from the world.

A handful of fanciful and forgettable short stories bubbled into being during my teens and early twenties. Although I found myself fully capable of creating characters, relaying emotions and setting scenes, my root problem was an inability to develop compelling stories.

Give some people even the weakest of plots and they can create epic dramas that drown readers in rich detail about worlds heretofore unimagined. Not so much with me.

For reasons I can't explain, my style of writing does not allow me to wander off into superfluous descriptive detail for the sole purpose of painting a pretty visual image. Perhaps because my writing reflects the kind of books I enjoy reading, I tend to assume readers don't need me to tell them every last thing about a character's physical appearance or the furnishings of a room. I'm far more interested in how the characters behave and respond to what's happening around them than I am in the minutae of the world in which they live.

When the notion of writing a murder mystery presented itself to me twenty years ago, I had no idea how to go about developing a proper story. I knew only that it sounded like a really great idea.

For the longest time, I struggled to start the project. I honestly don't know how many times I wrote and rewrote the same ten pages, hoping each time to break beyond to page eleven with a clear understanding of the journey my protagonist had to take. I held to a false belief that my progress was impeded by a lack of quality in those first ten pages. Rewriting them until they were perfect was the only way to move to the next stage.

Looking back, it's clear that my primary problem had nothing to do with the storyline I was trying to get out of my head and onto paper. Sure, there were a few things here and there that seemed silly in the harsh light of day, but they were easily remedied. No, the biggest problem was me.

After close to 30 years of imagining myself a writer, there I was continuing to imagine being one instead of simply being one. I remained that kid hiding under his covers with a flashlight, scratching away in a notebook, hoping my efforts would never be discovered for fear of embarrassment should someone actually (Gasp!) read them. It sounds pathetic to me now, but that's what insecurity can do to you. It can make you doubt what you love, doubt your proven abilities, and doubt your loved ones.

In May 2010, when I finally declared my intention to write a book, it was like being set loose in the world's largest playground. I continued to struggle with the many decisions I needed to make in order to advance the project, but I was no longer working in a vacuum. And having My Lovely Wife following along with every page and providing constant feedback made it easier for me to remain focused on the story. Before long, I was working from a proper outline, drawing out maps, and charting characters and their relationships to one another without a care in the world about who saw it and what they had to say about it. I was knee deep in the creative process and loving every minute of it.

Late this past Friday night, after 14 months of sneaking to the basement after everyone else in the house was asleep, I finally finished the first draft of DAMAGE, the murder mystery I dreamed of 20 years ago when I was a fresh-out-college newspaper reporter.

I don't believe in hard sell tactics. I'm not about to say that it's the best book ever written, but it's mine, and that's enough for me.



© 2011 Mark Feggeler

Why Write?

Thanks to that pesky little prankster known as the internet, there's a minor revolution occuring in the publishing industry these days. You can't look at any author's webpage, blog, or tweet history without stumbling headlong into one of many prognostications about the future of print media.

Are traditionally published books a dying breed?

Will ebooks and the immediacy of the digital medium turn all authors to self-publishing?

Can the traditional publishers and self-publishers co-exist in a harmonious and symbiotic relationship of peace, love and grooviness?

While I have an opinion on the matter, it can't be said I have much of a financial interest. I run a free blog with only 12 confessed followers (67 if you count my 68 Facebook followers and subtract me from the list). My only book is a self-published collection of items one can get for free on this blog, and I'm almost one solid year into the first draft of my first novel. Literally speaking, I am a literary nobody. Not even a speedbump, I am a grain of sand on the eight-lane super-highway of the publishing industry.

Not only might I never, I very likely and almost certainly never, will need to kindle a fire in my brain over whether to accept a major traditional publishing deal over going it alone as an indie author. When my novel is finished to my satisfaction and released on Amazon and whatever other digital format I'm able to sufficiently comprehend, I'll be happy if anyone buys it at all.

So, why write? If I'm so convinced an audience won't flock to my digital doorstep, why go through the time-consuming process of writing a book, or even a blog?

Well... It's just... Well, because! That's why.

As interesting as the discussion about the future of publishing might be to a wannabe author like me, I didn't start writing my silly little murder mystery last May because I thought I could make a big splash in the literary world. The book is mine. It's being written first and foremost for me, to prove I can do it, to prove I have the creativity and fortitude to push beyond the self-doubt that for twenty years has buried the idea of this book under excuses.

And the reality is that even if the book does sell reasonably well for a self-published, indie author's first attempt -- even if it blows the designer casing off your Kindle or Nook as it rockets to the top of every digital platform's best seller list -- I still won't make enough money to quit my day job and live in luxury on some private Greek island.

And that's okay. I don't like olives anyway, and I'm pretty sure I'd end up with some variation of skin cancer from over-exposure to the sun.

I have no grand illusions. I don't expect a movie version of my book in the offing (although with a few tweaks it could make for some seriously awful local dinner theater). I don't expect a mass audience to sit up and take notice, or critics to fall over themselves lauding the book's superior qualities, or even for my Mother to like it. It's very likely the F-word appears far too often for her tastes.

The fact of the matter is not every person who writes dreams of being a best-selling author. Some of us simply dream of being authors of finished works. That might put me a rung or twelve lower on the indie author ladder, but so what?

So what if I achieved only 1,300 new words this week on the novel? It's 1,300 more than I had when the week began.

So what if the only people who read my novel are friends and family? Aren't they the people I care about most in this world?

So what if I don't sell a single copy?

I didn't start writing because I had big green dollar signs in my eyes. My vision consisted of a well-told story, with believable characters and a compelling mystery. And, if I'm lucky, the cover art I slap together won't be too cheesy.



© 2011 Mark Feggeler

Don't Trust That Cookie!

"New and rewarding opportunities will soon develop for you."

That fortune came out of a cookie during a meal at one of our local Chinese buffets. If you haven't yet eaten at a Chinese buffet in rural North Carolina, it's an interesting experience.

As a child in New York, I recall being deathly afraid of the exotic selections served at the Chinese restaurant to which my parents would take us every now and then. It was a special treat for them. It usually turned into a night of "I'm Still Hungry" for me. My solution was to order wonton soup and egg rolls, the Happy Meal of Asian cuisine, then scarf down cookies and ice cream when we got home.

My sons have adopted a similar tactic. Their meal at the Chinese buffet includes wonton soup (broth only), "chicken on a stick," and that classic Chinese dish known to most of us as fried mozzarella sticks. I learned years ago that China is the real birthplace of pasta, but I had no idea Farm Rich was based in Hong Kong.

Anyway, back to the fortune cookie.

I had just launched this blog, and was seriously considering an attempt at writing the novel I had always dreamed of writing, so the fortune seemed timely. For several days, it helped inspire in me the notion of becoming a successful writer, maybe even achieving the ultimate goal of making enough money to be a full-time writer and quit the day job.

Time, however, can be cruel to dreams. As dust settled over the rectangular scrap of paper resting atop the laptop on my desk, it seemed as though I had foolishly allowed myself to be suckered in. No riches presented themselves. No books -- magnificently conceived and self-edited -- came flying from my fingertips. The abominable cookie lied!

Or did it? Maybe I misunderstood.

Yup, I'm pretty sure I did. Search for the verb in the fortune and you'll see what I mean.

"Develop."

New and rewarding opportunities will soon "develop" for you. They won't be handed across like a present, or awarded like a diploma. Just as when you plant a new flowerbed, the development begins the moment the plants are in the ground, but the flowerbed itself doesn't mature for another few years, if ever.

So that's where I am. I'm in the development stage, which began right around the time I ate that cookie. The blog is going strong, the first draft of the novel is nearly complete, and I've been able to experiment with self-publishing thanks to the blog. I'd have to say things are developing nicely.

Pretty smart cookie!




© 2011 Mark Feggeler

Dear Amazon: I Love You

The first thing I ever wrote was a meandering story about a high school student traveling through time and experiencing firsthand the many historical events discussed in his social studies class. I thought it was the greatest thing ever written and shared it with my friends who, like me, were pimply high school sophomores.

Ever since then, I've known I would become a writer.

Deep inside me, longing to escape, was that great American novel. It took shape gradually over years, the first foundation stone laid in my senior year at college when I decided it would be a murder mystery about a guy named Ray. Seriously, that was all I had at the time, but I held onto it like it was a Nobel prize winner.

As I moved through my life, Ray took on new characteristics. For a while, he was a newspaper reporter. Then he was a doctor, then a lawyer, and then back to a reporter when I realized I knew nothing about doctors and lawyers. But I was a reporter from 1990 to 1993, so it seemed best to stick with what I knew.

After ten years, I had gone from "murder mystery about a guy named Ray" to "murder mystery about a reporter named Ray." Doesn't sound like much, I know. Keep in mind I've been working on this for twenty-two years and you'll better appreciate the magnitude of the development.

In the last twelve years, I found myself inventing additional important things for the book, such as a plot, a murder victim, a reason why the victim was murdered, and a cast of characters to support the story. These details came in bits and pieces, in dreams and daydreams, in blond moments when I should have been paying attention to more important things, and quite often only after I had given up on the dream of writing the book.

In other words, the book wouldn't leave me alone. It wouldn't allow me to give up.

Oh, to be sure, it wasn't jumping out in front of me with it's arms flailing, yelling "Here I am! Write me! Write me!" It would throw just enough of a bone to me when I least expected it to keep me struggling forward.

But then I did something the book wasn't expecting. In January of 2010, I turned my back on the book and started writing this blog, primarily because I wanted to write and I didn't care if it was a book, a blog, or a birthday card. Blogging offered a release through which to vent the overwhelming need to write.

After a solid year of posts, I suspected I had enough to fill a small book, so I began compiling them. Sure enough, at approximately 120 pages, the first compilation of posts from this blog -- "Ramblings of a Very Pale Man: Volume One" -- is now available for Kindle through www.Amazon.com.

If you had told me two years ago that I would become a published author on February 6, 2011, I would have laughed in your face. Had you told me that first book would be a collection of humorous essays instead of my beloved and long-suffering murder mystery, I would have called you crazy.

But thanks to Blogger and the astoundingly simple process Amazon has created to self-publish I can now call myself a published author. Without trying to make more of this than is necessary you must understand that I have, within the last twenty-four hours, achieved one of my life-long dreams. It might pale in comparison to my wedding day and the births of my children but it's a dream come true all the same.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all of my friends who have been kind enough to read this blog. Thank you to all of you who have forwarded posts to friends, joined the Facebook fan page, left comments about posts, and otherwise encouraged me.

And a special thank you goes out to the mystery shopper in the UK who was the first person -- and presently only person -- to purchase the book. I have no idea who you are, and you have no idea how much you mean to me.



© 2010 Mark Feggeler

Renewed Resolve

A few days ago, I started writing a blog post all about my New Year's resolutions.

In it, I reflected on how I feel I've grown as a writer since starting the blog in January, and how I was setting goals for my writing for 2011 in regards to both the blog and the murder mystery I am writing. I expounded on my methodology for maintaining "quality" in my writings and achieving self-imposed deadlines. I even began rehashing why certain blog posts might have received more hits from readers than others.

What a load of self-indulgent crap!

I enjoy writing. And now that I have fully embraced it as a hobby and publicly professed to family and friends my enjoyment of it, I intend to continue doing it. I sincerely do hope to finish the book and continue blogging in 2011. But the dictionary describes a hobby as "an activity done regularly in one's leisure time for pleasure."

Regularly. Not religiously. Not daily. And for pleasure, not out of some sense of obligation or requirement or addiction.

I have perused blogs by established authors and get the same advice thrown at me over and over again. "Make it perfect!" "Write, edit, rewrite, edit, continue..." "The writing must consume your every thought!" "Write for as broad an audience as possible, not just your spouse." "Read books by authors succeeding at what you want to do and emulate them." "Make it perfect!!"

That's a lot of pressure for a hobbyist, and to all that advice I say "Go screw!" If my spouse is the only person who reads and enjoys the book I'm writing, then I'll be content. If my spouse is the only person who reads my blog and she enjoys them, then I am happy. And just in case anyone thinks a spouse is incapable of proper constructive criticism, I would love to introduce them to my Lovely Wife and teach them otherwise.

Rather than focus 2011's resolutions on myself and my own selfish wants and desires, I've decided to listen to the voice in my head that speaks when I'm kneeling in the church pew during the extraordinarily brief moments of reflection. Not to digress, but can I ask for a true moment of silence when the church program calls for one and not just a millisecond of semi-quiet pause? I barely get out the "Hi God, it's me again" by the time we've moved on to the next calisthenic exercise...

Anyway, here are my resolutions for next year:

1. Be a better husband. I'm often lost in a fog of my own forgetfulness and entirely neglect to show my appreciation for all my Lovely Wife does for me and our children. This isn't rocket science I'm talking about, either. No big mystery to solve. I simply need to be more helpful, reverent, romantic, silly, and generally expressive of my love for her.

2. Be a better father. This includes not losing my temper and not responding crankily to the many minor requests received daily. It involves being able to acknowledge at all times -- not just when convenient -- how fortunate I am to have three beautiful, healthy children who genuinely enjoy my company and aren't embarrassed to show their affection for me in front of all their friends.

3. Be a better person. This one encapsulates many different smaller resolutions into one big one. It includes being a better son, brother, friend, parishioner, employee, coworker, volunteer, and member of my community. It addresses such things as living up to my promises and making promises I know I can keep.

If I can do these three simple things in 2011, then I will have a richer life than any book or blog could ever provide.



© 2010 Mark Feggeler